[OPE-L:7615] money and historical contingency

From: gerald_a_levy (gerald_a_levy@msn.com)
Date: Fri Sep 06 2002 - 09:15:11 EDT


Re [76l3]:

> It is not a  matter of historical contigency  that the money
> commodity in a system of general commodity production was not a
> *freely* reproducible or an ordinary, run-of-mill durable consumer
> good with a small secondary market; as Michele Naples has already
> suggested:
> "... Marx made clear that the good which serves as commodity money
> must be scarce to serve as money. Just as Marx rejected Ricardo, he
> would reject the neo Ricardian model where the exchange value of
> money is determined in the same way as other commodities' price of
> production." Freeman and Carchedi, eds. p.103

Isn't  whether money took the form of a money commodity  under
capitalism a matter of historical contingency?  After all, the state could
have offered paper currency printed in its name as money and banned
the use of any other materials (gold and silver included) as money.
That paper currency  issued by the state was first introduced under
a monetary system where there was a money commodity and was
"backed-up" by the stock of gold and silver held by the state seems
also to be a matter of historical contingency.  This topic -- the state's
role
in a capitalist monetary system -- wasn't fully developed in Volume One
-- or the rest of _Capital_ -- since the state-form was being abstracted
from at that level of exposition.

In solidarity, Jerry


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